Montreal Gazette: Don't ignore human rights

Monday 11 December 2000

China's imperviousness to international pressure means trouble for Zhang Kunlun, a former McGill University professor who holds dual Chinese-Canadian citizenship. He has been sentenced to three years in a forced-labour camp for performing Falun Gong meditation exercises in a public park in July.

The Chinese government's position is that Falun Gong, a growing movement with millions of adherents who practice a mediation technique derived from Buddhism, is a dangerous []. In the case of Mr. Zhang, because he entered China on his Chinese passport, Beijing insists he is Chinese, not Canadian.

It also means trouble for Jean Chretien's Liberal government, which has taken the line that the development of human rights in China can be helped by trade and investment relations. At a point when the government is preparing a Team Canada trade mission to China in February, Mr. Zhang's arbitrary arrest and imprisonment come as an inconvenient reminder of the limitations of Canada's policy.

Mr. Chretien's position is made all the more awkward now that Mr. Zhang has garnered the support of Liberal MP Irwin Cotler. A prominent human-rights lawyer, Mr. Cotler in the past has represented high-profile political prisoners such as South Africa's Nelson Mandela and former Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov.

Canada's stake in China, its fourth-largest trading partner, is high. Two-way trade between the two countries reached $10 billion in 1998. But, commercial interest aside, Canada should also be bound to uphold human rights around the world.

As recently as 1997, wanting to deflect criticism from its decision not to co-sponsor a resolution on China at a meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Canada said it influences human rights in China "by intensifying our promising bilateral measures."

But the fact remains that if its international obligations conflict with its trade interests, the trade interests are not supposed to take precedence.

Moreover, Mr. Zhang is a citizen of Canada and should be guaranteed the best representation his country can provide.

The question of how China can best be persuaded to stop trampling on the human and civil rights of its citizens is a matter of dispute among the countries and international organizations that deal with it.

A lot of hope has been placed on boundary-crashing technological advances such as the Internet, with its apparently irresistible ability to carry information anywhere at anytime. But China seems equal to countering the democratizing force of the Internet. China's authoritarian state will not be so easily dismantled.

China has imposed strict limits on the number of organizations that can interconnect with the Internet. Just four Chinese entities are allowed to connect, which makes it much easier for the state to control what comes into the country. Among the sites that are continuously blocked are the BBC, CNN, overseas human-rights organizations and the the Falun Gong site.

If such an immensely powerful country is still so afraid of someone like Mr. Zhang meditating in a park, it means human rights in China will not be honoured any time soon. Canada should keep up the pressure. If Mr. Chretien persists in going ahead with his trade mission, he should make a point of raising human rights violations on his visit.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/editorial/pages/001211/5025331.html